Saturday, November 29, 2014

(1) Praise the LORD! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens!

(2) Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!

(3) Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp!

(4) Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!

(5) Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!

(6) Let everything that has breath praise the LORD! Praise the LORD!

As I reflect on Thanksgivings gone by, I begin to wonder how well I have fulfilled Psalm 150 in my associations with the holiday. Sure, I praise Him for His "mighty deeds" (the things that He does and has done), namely the safety and peace He brings His people and the comfort that gives my family and I. However, David gives another reason why God is worthy of praise and adoration. He tells us that we should also thank God for His "excellent greatness". This refers to character, not action. Although we know that all of God's "mighty deeds" spring forth from His "excellent greatness", and, that being the case, it is impossible to separate the two; I still wonder how often I specifically thank Him for who He is. How often do I really consider the nature and essence of Christ as beautiful as His redemption, his salvation, and his grace? How beautiful would He be to me if I were not experiencing the wealth of blessing that His "mighty deeds" have purchased me? If His hands were to close toward me (which He promises they will not), would I still seek His face or leave Him? I pray for my family and yours, that we make every effort as ourselves these questions with an honest and sincere heart. I pray we teach our children that God is inherently good and worthy of praise whether we are full and content or cold and hungry. There is no true devotion without this reality. There is no eternal life without this truth. Jesus said,"and this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."The grim and honest reality is, there may be coming a time when the manifest, tangible blessings of God are stripped away. If our motivations for loving Him rests on lesser things, when those things are removed, then love will cease. Let us cling to Christ and count everything else as loss compared to knowing Him for this is eternal life. ﻿

We are blessed to have so many loved ones to celebrate with this time of year. Here are just some of those whom God has set along side us:

Jordyn loves to memorize scripture. Here are some from the past month that we have been working on. Be sure to quiz her when you see her.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

If anyone is still wondering.. YES, we are still doing our homeschool work DAILY with Jordyn. I am just 7 weeks behind on posting for the blog. With Caleb unexpectedly arriving almost 2 weeks early, which was wonderful and God ordained, I was already 3 weeks behind posting and now I feel a little overwhelmed. I want to continue documenting our homeschool experience. I have over 60 pictures per blog to edit and upload along with loads of videos. However, with a newborn demanding 99% of my attention and Jordyn demanding about 98%, it is safe to say that the blog has taken a bit of a back seat. With all this said, I will be posting pictures, with commentary, on a "can do" basis for some time to catch up. Which I hate, because I had wanted to look back later and see a timeline of when things occurred. Oh well, we have enjoyed school so much, and the amount of material she is learning is mind-boggling. We are currently on week 13 of homeschool.

Here is what she knows based on various assessments:
Jordyn has learned or has shown she has learned:

Social Skills (when she gets lots of attention from others she doesn't know how to handle it) Especially at church

A kind heart

Please pray, with us, that when God said,Eze 36:25-27 " I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.", that He included our little Jordyn and Caleb in that promise.

Dueteronomy 6:7-9

You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

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